Interactive Computer Aided Learning in the Didactic Activities of a Co-operative Virtual Classroom

This paper highlights the educational strength of new technologies: merging interactive control techniques in co-operative environments can create ideal learning conditions. As an example, we will describe the didactic unit named "spelling dictation test", supported by our network service based on the TCP/IP standard. Microsoft's Peedy agent is the teacher's assistant, which interacting with pupils through the Text-to Speech component, offers a real-time support while letting them doing their work at their own pace. The teacher chooses texts for dictation, which may be differentiated according to the learner's skills.